Honoring my father’s name

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Three days after Father’s Day, my dad, Harvey, will be here in New York, making his annual visit from Florida.

It will be great to see him after another year of just speaking on the phone weekly. We talk every Sunday night around 8 p.m.

He asks what his grandchildren are doing, how my wife Christine is, and if I’m working on any big stories.

He tells me what he is doing. “Not much, it's dull and boring,” is his standard line.

It must be hard for him, even after more than 12 years after my mother died. He has friends, some are year-round Floridians and some are snowbirds.

But as he says, “you have all the action.” He means the kids. My son Matt is 20 and is a college student, a volunteer firefighter and a professional DJ. My daughter Elizabeth is 11-plus and headed into the seventh grade. She is a YouTuber, a dancer and a comedian.

If my mom was alive, she would be kvelling. My father is very excited to see how they have matured.

My father consistently recounts the story about Matt when he was almost 8, and at my mother’s shiva cleared off the mobile planter carrier, and served beverages to everyone. To dad it’s prologue to the type of person Matt has become.

Liz has connected with her grandfather in way that only grandkids can. At the end of every phone call, he says give Matt a hug and Liz a kiss. When I kiss the top of her head she says “grandpa” with a huge smile.

Being older now, I refer to this year’s birthday as Lawrence Taylor’s jersey number, I understand how much my parents did for me and how much I have and should do for my kids.

Through the years my dad has said to my brother, and me, “I don't have much to give you but my name.”

I hope that by applying what I learned from my father that I am doing right by his name and my children. One day I anticipate to be as dull and bored as he is, while basking in the contentment that my kids can speak to me every Sunday. And I’ll take the other days of the week as well.